One of the most attractive benefits to consumers in any industry is purchasing products and services at a discounted price. Discounting saves customers money, allows companies to earn their business and disciplines the prices competitors offer for the same items. In a normally functioning market, it is a win-win for both consumers and businesses.

At the same time, discounting involves pricing discretion, and pricing discretion that is not carefully exercised by a business can give rise to concerns about arbitrary pricing and, worse, pricing that discriminates against protected groups of consumers. This concern has driven the efforts of many consumer advocates and government officials over the years to eliminate dealer pricing discretion. In the context of dealer financing, this would be attempted by eliminating the participation that dealers earn for originating credit contracts and replacing it with a non-discountable, flat fee.

Many finance sources that are assigned credit contracts compensate dealers with non-discountable flat fees. The National Automobile Dealers Association takes no position on the form of compensation freely entered into by dealers and their finance sources. Nevertheless, NADA has resisted – and will continue to resist – efforts by the government to prohibit finance sources from compensating dealers with discountable dealer participation for originating credit contracts with their customers. The pro-competitive benefits that dealer participation provides to consumers should not be eliminated by unwarranted and untested government intrusion into the marketplace.

Notwithstanding the flaws of such a mandate, concerns about “unfettered” pricing discretion expressed by the acting chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and others should not be ignored. Dealers should consider ways to address those concerns while striving to provide their customers with affordable and competitively priced products. One approach a dealer should consider (managing discretion while promoting competition) when earning dealer participation in a credit contract is to adopt the optional NADA/NAMAD/AIADA Fair Credit Compliance Policy & Program (NADA Fair Credit Compliance Program).¹

The NADA Fair Credit Compliance Program was not developed in a vacuum. Instead, it stems from – and fully adopts – an approach to fair credit compliance outlined in consent orders that the Department of Justice (DOJ) entered into with two automobile dealerships to settle pricing discrimination claims in 2007.²

In those consent orders, the dealers were required to adopt specifications known as “Guidelines for Setting Dealer Reserve.” This was how the dealer established the standard participation rate (SDPR) that included in credit offers to consumers (i.e., the dealership would offer an APR the sum of the wholesale buy rate offered by the finance source and its SDPR) unless a “good faith, competitive reason” supporting a lower dealer participation rate was present in the transaction. The consent orders included seven such legitimate business reasons for discounting the SDPR, with the three most common being the presence of a lower cap imposed by the finance source, a consumer’s monthly budget constraint and a consumer’s access to a more competitive offer. The consent orders further required that any deviations from the SDPR be recorded on a pricing certification form, reviewed by the general manager or his or her designee and retained by the dealership.

In Nov. 2013, while speaking at a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) Auto Finance Forum, a senior DOJ official³ validated this approach when explaining that:

(i) pricing discretion is not prohibited by the Equal Credit Opportunity Act;

(ii) when exercised, pricing discretion presents a fair lending risk that needs to be managed; and one way to manage that risk is to adopt the approach outlined in the 2007 DOJ consent orders. ⁴

Two months later, after extensive preparation and review, the three national trade associations representing franchised automobile dealers released the NADA Fair Credit Compliance Program.

As noted above, the NADA Fair Credit Compliance Program fully adopts the framework established in the DOJ consent orders and builds on it. A dealer who adopts the program has it approved by its board of directors and appoints a senior dealership official to serve as the Program Coordinator (PC). The PC oversees the implementation and maintenance of the program by establishing the SDPR, conducting initial and periodic training, reviewing pricing certification forms, submitting an annual compliance report to the board and performing other related tasks. The program explains each of these steps in detail.

Since its inception, the NADA Fair Credit Compliance Program has gained widespread support from many prominent observers both inside and outside of the industry.⁵ Recent additions to the list of supporters include:

(i) the American Bar Association, which overwhelmingly approved a resolution at its 2020 annual meeting that, in part, urges governments at all levels to offer “a safe harbor against pricing discrimination claims for dealers that faithfully implement the NADA/NAMAD/AIADA Fair Credit Compliance Policy and Program”;⁶ and

(ii) a CFPB Taskforce on Federal Consumer Financial Law, which made a similar recommendation to the CFPB and the Federal Reserve Board in Jan. 2021.⁷

The FTC has also seen value in this approach to managing pricing discretion. It included the framework and many elements of the NADA Fair Credit Compliance Program in a May 2020 consent order it entered into with an automobile dealership to settle allegations of intentional credit discrimination.

Notwithstanding its broad support, the NADA Fair Credit Compliance Program remains optional. Its adoption does not guarantee that a dealer will be protected from liability for a fair credit violation. However, if faithfully adopted, implemented and maintained, the NADA Fair Credit Compliance Program provides a dealer with a well-regarded path forward in a very challenging environment. This should not be overlooked when a dealer discusses how it will ensure its customers’ fair and lawful treatment with its attorney.⁸